The "Precautionary Principle"
By Henry Lamb
web posted October 20, 2003
The Precautionary Principle was adopted by more than 170
nations at the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and
Development, in Rio de Janeiro. It says, simply, that:
"Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack
of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for
postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental
degradation."
For a decade, this principle has been used to justify
environmental policy, that could not be justified by scientific
evidence. The entire global warming debate, and subsequent
policy proposals, have been advanced on the strength of this
principle, even in the face of growing scientific evidence that
there is no threat of "serious or irreversible " global warming
resulting from human activity.
Many of the same people who invoke this principle to advance
environmental policies, reject the principle when it comes to
"serious or irreversible damage" that could result from terrorists'
activities. Iraq is a perfect example.
Prior to the U.S. liberation of Iraq, The U.S. intelligence
community, and the military, concurred with the intelligence
networks of dozens of other nations, and of the United Nations,
and agreed that:
1. Iraq possessed, and had used on its own people,
weapons of mass destruction;
2. Iraq presented no evidence that these weapons had been
destroyed;
3. Iraq had hosted known terrorists affiliated with Al
Qaeda;
4. Iraq allowed terrorists to train within its borders;
5. Iraq supported terrorism by making substantial grants to
families of suicide bombers;
Despite the absence of "full scientific certainty," the "threat of
serious or irreversible damage" to the United States, and other
countries, was clearly present.
In the face of this threat, suppose the President had done
nothing, and the U.S., or an ally had been attacked with
biological or chemical weapons. His critics would now be
screaming for his impeachment for not heeding the obvious
warnings.
Some of his most vocal critics had access to the same
intelligence data on which the President based his decision to act.
At the time, they agreed with the President. Now, it is more
convenient to claim that the President "exaggerated" or
"manipulated" the data. These are, perhaps, the most seriously
irresponsible claims that anyone could possibly make.
The intelligence data may not have met the standard of "full
scientific certainty;" intelligence data rarely does. The data was
more than sufficient to justify the action taken by the United
States.
People who point to the absence of barrels of bio-chemical
weapons to support the argument that the President
manufactured the claim, should be far more concerned about
where those weapons are now, especially since no evidence of
their destruction has been found. It is far more likely that those
weapons were transported to neighboring countries, or are well-
hidden in caves or underground, than that they never existed at
all.
It most also be noted that some of the critics who claim that the
President "manipulated" the data, have no problem at all
accepting the grossly manipulated and misrepresented data
regarding climate change, or the so-called "endangered" spotted
owl, or salmon, or DDT, or asbestos, or MTBE, or any of the
hundreds of other "sky-is-falling" environmental threats to
society.
Now that it is known that neither the spotted owl, nor salmon is,
or was, endangered, and that both DDT and asbestos produce
far more benefits than harm to society, and that MTBE should
never have been required in fuels – why are the critics of
"manipulated" data not screaming?
The answer, of course, is political advantage. To some
politicians, nothing is more important than political advantage. It
doesn't matter that hundreds of thousands of people have been
adversely affected by environmental policies based on
"manipulated" data, with little or no benefit to society. It doesn't
even matter that their continued bad-mouthing of our presence in
Iraq is emboldening those who exist only to kill Americans. What
matters to them is political advantage.
The best precaution is to see that none of these principals gain
political advantage.
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental
Conservation Organization, and chairman of Sovereignty
International.
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